The weeks leading up to Christmas this year had much less magic than I had hoped for and intended. I think sometimes you can be teetering on the cusp of burnout but because you can’t burnout, you just keep re-lighting the little stub of yourself that is left to keep the fire going. Until of course, there is nothing left to burn. And then you are absolutely burnt out.
I refused to make food for anyone on Christmas day. I read half a book I was gifted and ate snacks and wore fuzzy socks. Matching fuzzy socks. Unlike the week before where I couldn’t find a matching fuzzy sock to save my life.
I try not to burn out fantastically – nothing wild and disruptive. Just me quietly curling up in a cozy ball and being unbothered by whatever else is going on. Maybe that’s not burning out, maybe that’s my protective stance, to prevent burnout. Either way, I’m ready to hibernate. The idea of doing is exhaustive. I just did not take care of my self very well this year. Really the past few years, but I particularly see it this year. I am resolved to do something differently and I do like the idea of a New Year to start new habits. Even if it’s played out.
Everything is played out at this point, isn’t it? We just have to pick what we want regardless of what someone else thinks of it. There’s a hot take on every single life choice at this point and some comment section somewhere where people are absolutely rabid about how bad something is, something you like and enjoy that someone else just can’t stand and thinks is complete trash. Oh well, right? I mean yes, let me be thoughtful and reflective enough to consider my choices and determine if they are trash, but let me also just not obsess over trying to make a choice that no one thinks is trash. Some one absolutely thinks it is trash. And I may too, eventually. But I have to do something outside my head space. I can’t just constantly consider everything all the time from every angle with all the information. It’s absolutely paralyzing. And honestly, it’s trash.
I struggle with the option to obtain so much feedback and information. I used to look at the world around me, books, a couple magazines, and the tv shows I was allowed to watch that came on my non-cable tv to get an idea of how I wanted to go about things. I like knowing things. But there are too many things to know now. And after a while, knowing them all feels more and more pointless.
Maybe this is why the fruit of the tree of knowledge was forbidden. It ruins everything. Maybe we weren’t supposed to taste it because we can’t stop consuming it once we start and it rots everything from the inside out. Maybe we’re all bloated and sick with too much of it.
Detox. That’s what my body wants now. From all the sugar and carbs but also all the knowledge that isn’t knowledge. The noise. Detox from the noise. Rest from the over consumption of everything. Slower moving info is fine. Slower moving everything is fine. I don’t need to do everything right now. I don’t need to know everything right now. We know so much of nothing. We know so little of everything.
Christmas brings so much nostalgia and I have been swimming in it lately. I see why people long for what has already happened. We already know how the wars end and the way the family handles the diagnosis. We already know who survives the car crash and what happens when the job is lost and the fire burns the mill down and the court case is decided. We all know what happens and we pretend the pain and the fear and the hurt weren’t the same as the kind we feel right now because we see their future and it feels settled and conquered and safe and manageable. We think it’s so long ago that it can’t be so bad anymore. We pretend we aren’t all products of those people and those events. We act like we aren’t still strung with the same strings that connect to them. Like their pain doesn’t radiate and ripple our way. Likewise, we pretend we don’t owe them for our comforts and the way things aren’t what they once were because someone did something about it. We act like our fortunes weren’t sowed by our ancestors. Our ancestors who were scared and unsure and determined and inebriated and confused and brave and foolish and hopeful and young. We act like it’s something far from us, like they weren’t just like us. We act like we aren’t going to be somebody’s old stories some day. Like we aren’t ancestors-to-be. Like we aren’t nostalgia in the making.
If this is true (it is true), it gives me something to work towards that I had forgotten about; a story worth telling, a story I want my legacy attached to. There are things I want to send forward on those strings that reach into the future to the people who will one day look back and see me. I used to narrate my life to myself (in my head and on paper) like I was a story someone would read one day. I don’t remember when I stopped doing that. Probably something I dropped when I started surviving my life. Probably right around the time I veered off my path for some path I let someone else convince me to get on.
Sometimes it only takes a little push when you’re weak and doubting to get you going in the wrong direction. It’s not everyone’s wrong direction, which is why you get confused, thinking if you just try a little more or be a little different you can make it work too. But there’s different paths for a reason. I’ve gone far enough on the wrong one. I’m stopping here to rest and re-calibrate.
Surviving your own life isn’t nothing, but I want more.
Right now it kinda feels like one of those shows that you are so into for the first few seasons and then it gets a little boring and you wonder what happened and if they’ll be able to get back to the good stuff.
I’m reaching back a little, into my own past, the places I have been, the person I have been. Journal entries, old posts, photos. Remembering how I spent my time and energy. Remembering what I held inside me, what I nurtured then, and how. Because there have been times I was who I would like to be now. She’s there, the person that was, she’s existing. I just need to go get her, restore my connection to her. Away from her, I am a shell and a shadow, we have to reunite for me to really be. I’m re-tracing my steps to find where I veered off the path, trying to re-align with all of it and start again, from the middle.
